The primary goal of this application is to enhance the dissemination potential of a successful intervention, Workplace Solutions that was developed to disseminate a set of 15 evidence- based cancer prevention strategies to workplaces. Cancer and other chronic diseases are the leading causes of mortality and morbidity among working-age adults, and employed adults have a number of risk factors that contribute to chronic disease. We have developed an intervention that improves employers'health insurance benefits, workplace policies, and employee programs for several of these risk factors, including tobacco cessation, nutrition, physical activity, obesity, and cancer screening. We have developed and tested this intervention with our dissemination partner, the American Cancer Society. Employers'adoption of evidence-based cancer prevention interventions improved after they completed Workplace Solutions. We propose to improve the reach of this intervention beyond employees to employees'spouses/partners. [To maximize the chances that reach will be improved in a way that will have a positive impact on health disparities, we will work with mid-size employers from low-wage industries, their employees, and their employees'spouses/partners for each of the proposed projects.] The projects in this proposal will inform development of intervention materials that can be added to the current Workplace Solutions dissemination efforts of the American Cancer Society. Specifically, we will conduct audience research (focus groups and a survey) of mid- size employers in low-wage industries, to learn about their willingness and ability to include employees'partners in workplace health promotion. We will also conduct audience research (semi-structured interviews) with employees and their partners to learn their attitudes about and preferred channels for workplace health promotion. Based on the findings from the audience research, we will then develop and pre-test intervention materials for two of the evidence-based interventions in Workplace Solutions. Feedback from the pre-tests (focus groups) will be used to adapt the materials and will give us insights into the feasibility of this dissemination approach;these materials will then be integrated into Workplace Solutions. The proposed projects will lay the groundwork for (a) developing materials for employees'partners for each Workplace Solutions intervention and (b) testing whether this dissemination strategy changes employees'and partners'risk behaviors.
The proposed research will serve public health in three ways. First, it will improve the reach of an intervention already being disseminated to a new group - employees'spouses/partners - and may improve adoption among employees as well, as it could provide them with social support at home as well as at work. Second, it will provide new insights about an understudied phenomenon - employers'willingness and ability to extend workplace health promotion efforts to employees'partners. [Third, as all of this research will be conducted among mid-size, low- wage employers and their employees, it has the potential to reduce health disparities by developing workplace health promotion approaches that are appropriate for employers with employees at increased risk for chronic diseases, including cancer.]
| Allen, Claire L; Hammerback, Kristen; Harris, Jeffrey R et al. (2015) Feasibility of Workplace Health Promotion for Restaurant Workers, Seattle, 2012. Prev Chronic Dis 12:E172 |
| Hammerback, Kristen; Hannon, Peggy A; Harris, Jeffrey R et al. (2015) Perspectives on Workplace Health Promotion Among Employees in Low-Wage Industries. Am J Health Promot 29:384-92 |
| Hannon, Peggy A; Garson, Gayle; Harris, Jeffrey R et al. (2012) Workplace health promotion implementation, readiness, and capacity among midsize employers in low-wage industries: a national survey. J Occup Environ Med 54:1337-43 |
| Hannon, Peggy A; Hammerback, Kristen; Garson, Gayle et al. (2012) Stakeholder perspectives on workplace health promotion: a qualitative study of midsized employers in low-wage industries. Am J Health Promot 27:103-10 |
